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Monday, February 28, 2011

Do not worry

With a planned houseshift over the weekend past I kept Sunday free from preaching engagements and thus my mind free from thinking about the lectionary readings, let alone knowing what they were. So it was a surprise to me when at church to learn that the gospel reading was Matthew 6:25-end, "Do not worry." What a message five days after the worst of natural disasters in my lifetime here in New Zealand. What a challenge to be free of anxiety in the weeks and months ahead as people lose jobs, as lost houses are not quickly replaced, and as trauma and grief are worked through. None of us are sufficient for these things. Lord, increase our faith!

That service was outdoors. A quick tour of the church revealed the power of the earthquake on a modern (just on fifty years old building). Imploded glass. Holes in the roof letting daylight in. Cracks you could poke your finger in (better not, if there is another shake they might close up again). Scattered prayerbooks and Bibles on the floor. Liquefaction. My colleague's books in a mountain in his office. Irony of ironies: the bookcase had been earthquake mounted to the walls. Except the earthquake ripped the mountings away from the wall.

Then home to the mundane task of completing our house move. The more sorting and cleaning the further out of touch I got from the disaster viewable from TV and newspapers but scarcely visible looking out the window. Shouldn't I be doing more to help? Then right into the thick of the post-quake turmoil, visiting with friends caught up in the extraordinary (and excruciating) process of victim identification. To make that visit we walked along one of Christchurch's loveliest streets, covered in sand and pockmarked with sinkholes.

So today. Back to Theology House. Tidying up. Vacuuming up grit fallen from the gap where ceiling meets brick gable above. Ensuring two diocesan meetings could take place in our premises which have two virtues right now: safe, and beyond the tight police cordon around the CBD. There, for the time being our Anglican Centre lies. But soon a temporary one will be operating in another part of the city. Shouldn't I be doing more to help? In the afternoon an opportunity opened up. Would I assist one of our archdeacons who is juggling three roles at the moment. Certainly. To cross the city to meet with him and his wife, Teresa and I made a wide berth of the CBD and were rewarded with a relatively quick 30 minute trip. On the way home we chose a different route, closer to the CBD, in the hope we might view one of our damaged churches. That route took 90 minutes!

We actually saw two churches. The second we inspected closely. I once worked there, and Teresa and I were married there. With our own eyes we could see damage which makes it unlikely, perhaps even certain that another service will not be held there. Many questions arise from the declarative judgement that a building must be torn down, or reconstructed at vast expense. There are many feelings to work through. With my head I believe that church is not the building but the people. In my heart I am sad that the place where Teresa and I married may be no more.

Peter, you and Theresa and your family were again a concern of "the Verdict Group" when we met again for coffee in Nelson on Tuesday morning — and so were other friends and colleagues dealing firsthand with the disaster. Thanks for sharing your journey through this stressful, challenging time.

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Anglican Down Under

Welcome to this blog on Anglican, theological, biblical and other matters, mostly missional or liturgical (but I reserve the right to write about cricket). It is grounded in some islands at the bottom of the world which, together with a large island to our west, constitute fabulous Down Under.

Sometimes I pursue such a fine centrist line that I annoy people on either side of the line. If you do not like being annoyed then you know what to do.

I work for the Diocese of Christchurch and for Theology House, Christchurch. Views expressed here are not necessarily the views of either organisation. But I harbour the hope that what I say here is helpful to those with whom I am in fellowship because of these two entities!

ACANZP

ACANZP stands for Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. In Aotearoa New Zealand this church is also known as Te Haahi Mihinare - The Missionary Church. (I work in ministry training and theological education in this church as Director of Education and Director of Theology House in the Diocese of Christchurch. Views expressed here are personal and not those of the Diocese, but the intent is not to express any personal views contradictory of the Diocese's).

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Followers

Pearls

Show us anything clearly set forth in Holy Scripture that we do not teach and we will teach it. Show us anything in our teaching or practice is clearly contrary to Holy Scripture, and we will abandon it.

Stephen Neill

For the glory of God is a human being fully alive, and the glory of humanity is the vision of God.

St Irenaeus

Fundamentally the Gospel is obsessed with the idea of the unity of human society.

Masure

We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers. We have planted no new religion, but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.

Bishop Jewel

Preachers shall behave themselves modestly and soberly in every department of their life. But especially shall they see to it that they teach nothing in the way of a sermon, which they would have religiously held and believed by the people, save what is agreeable to the teaching of the Old or New Testament, and what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine.

Canon 6 from the 1571 Bishop’s Convocation

Kent: "See better, Lear, and let me still remain."

William Shakespeare

For the clarity that we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear. Wittgenstein

Justice is eternal, and doesn't depend at all on human conventions.

Montesquieu

The real challenge of Islam to Western intellectual discourse is for us to ask ourselves whether our unprecedented modern experiment of conducting political life with no transcendent values is really working out as well as we once hoped.

Harvey Cox

The long-term happiness of a society depends on how individuals behave towards each other, how families hold together, and how leaders keep the trust of people.

William Hague

Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed.

John Neuhaus

To be an evangelical is not, first and foremost, about doctrinal correctness, but about a passion for the gospel of salvation from sin through Christ for eternity.

John Richardson

Neither may we ... lightly esteem what hath been allowed as fit in the judgement of antiquity, and by the long continued practice of the whole church; from which unnecessarily to swerve, experience hath never as yet found it safe.

Richard Hooker (Lawes, V.7.1)

The function of the Christian canon was to separate the apostolic witness from the ongoing tradition of the church, whose truth was continually in need of being tested by the apostolic faith.

Brevard S. Childs

Every word of God proves true. (Proverbs 30:5)

If the people of this religion are asked about the proof for the soundness of their religion, they flare up, get angry and spill the blood of whoever confronts them with this question. They forbid rational speculation, and strive to kill their adversaries. This is why truth became thoroughly silenced and concealed.

Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi

Change comes through ordinary working people organising themselves to struggle for a better world day in, day out.

Morning Star newspaper editorial Tuesday 5 May 2015

"In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl."

James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Something to think about

Given that, like it or not, much Anglican Communion trouble at root is about dispute over what the church should teach about homosexuality, two papers here may be helpful. They represent, in my view, some of the best arguments for and against setting aside or obeying Scripture's teaching. If only the authors were Anglican ...

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Glossary

For people for whom NZ English is not their native tongue here are some translations of regular Maori words used here or in linked articles: Aotearoa: name for New Zealand; aroha: love; Ariki: lord; Atua: God; hui: gathering, assembly, conference; hui amorangi: regional area under leadership of regional bishop within Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa (Diocese of Aotearoa); kai: food; kai moana: sea food; Ihu: Jesus; iwi: tribe; Karaiti: Christ; Kotahitanga/Te Kotahitanga: within ACANZP, the council responsible for drawing together the hopes and aspirations of the three tikanga for theological education and ministry training and transforming them into policy and into recommendations to the St John's College Trust Board for expenditure of educational funds; also the Board of Governors of St John's College (the primary, but not the only object of SJCTB expenditure); koha: gift, responsive gift to hospitality offered; mana: power, respect, honour; marae: community meeting area, including meeting hall and dining room; mihi: speech; moana: sea, ocean; pihopa: bishop; pihopatanga: bishopric, diocese; powhiri: welcome ceremony; rangimarie: peace; tangata: people; tangi: funeral; taonga: treasure; tikanga: culture, cultural stream, within ACANZP: one of the three strands, Maori [Te Pihopatanga o Aotearoa], Pakeha [NZ Dioceses], or Pasefika (Diocese of Polynesia) which make up our whole church under the authority of General Synod while being self-governing for many aspects of church life in each of the tikanga; waiata: song; wairua: spirit; Wairua Tapu: Holy Spirit; waka: canoe; whanau: family, extended family.